Employees of a foreign exchange trading company work near monitors displaying the Nikkei share average (L) and a TV programme featuring the downed Malaysian Airlines MH17, in Tokyo on July 18, 2014. Japan's Nikkei share average dropped to a one-week low on Friday morning and posted its biggest one-day fall in two months as investors turned risk averse on news that a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet was shot down near the Ukraine-Russia border.
Reuters/Toru Hanai

An Emergencies Ministry member works at putting out a fire at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. The Malaysian airliner MH17 was brought down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard and sharply raising stakes in a conflict between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels in which Russia and the West back opposing sides.
Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev

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Shares of Malaysian Airline System Berhad (KLSE:MAS) dropped to their lowest level in nine weeks after Flight MH17 was shot down in eastern Ukraine Thursday, killing all 298 people on board.

Shares of MAS, which operates Malaysia Airlines, fell 13 percent in Friday morning trade in Kuala Lumpur, increasing this year’s drop to 37 percent, Bloomberg reported Friday, adding that the shares of Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad also tumbled 4.2 percent, while the ringgit weakened 0.4 percent against the U.S. dollar. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was downed over eastern Ukraine on Thursday in an attack, which the Ukrainian government claimed was caused by a missile fired at the plane by pro-Russian rebels. However, both sides have denied having caused the crash.

“This is shocking,” Bloomberg quoted Geoffrey Ng, an adviser for strategic investments at Fortress Capital Asset Management Sdn., as saying. “Investors will want to sell first and get more information later. This will raise concerns about the safety culture of airlines in general.”

This is the second loss of a plane for Malaysia Airlines, after Flight MH370 disappeared in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with with 239 people on board. The plane's disappearance triggered a record search involving several countries and international agencies, and has affected the struggling airline's financial performance since.

“Malaysian Air will have a tough road ahead to rebuild its image,” analysts at the Hong Leong Investment Bank Bhd. wrote in a report, obtained by Bloomberg. “Consumer sentiment on its safety record will be deeply affected, which has further hampered its hope to turnaround by 2015.”